Passover
by Red Jack 87
Summary: Walter confronts the Captain after leaving Integral's side during the Battle for London, whilst greater powers look on. One shot.


(Okay, so, I'm just putting up a couple of my old and creaky one shots from years ago now I've got an account – so some plot points are a bit outdated, I assumed that Walter wasn't a willing traitor, that him and the Captain were both brainwashed slaves of the Major's etc etc)

**Passover** -

'So tell me Sohnchen, why are you alllwwayyys always, always showing up and interrupting 'our meal'?

Walter gritted his teeth and hauled his wires back towards him. Painful inch by painful inch. Despite his efforts, the Major's shifter bodyguard held them firm with unearthly strength, seemingly impassive to the deep gouges slowly opening across his palms.

Though the Captain proved himself impervious to pain, Walter was not. His forearms were already burning from the effort of wrestling the creature. Too old, he thought. Too old for this.

In a flicker of movement, the Captain released the wires, sending Walter tumbling forward, his balance lost. As he dropped into a roll to absorb the impact of his fall, the shifter sprang lightly into the air, sailing gracefully over him to land where the old warrior had stood mere seconds before.

'You've not aged well, boy'.

As fluidly as his elderly frame could manage, Walter twisted back to his feet and faced the Captain again.

'Yield'.

Once again, Walter sent his wires sweeping out towards his foe. This time, with speed that belied his size, the Captain sidestepped the monofilament titanium lines, once, twice, thrice.

'Yield'.

Too slow for this. Too old. Walter waged his own internal war against his fears and doubts, crushing them down. Focus. He'd always know that it would end like this. No quiet retirement in the Cornish sun for the Angel of Death, no quiet death for the Shinigami.

He was Hellsing. A warrior born.

The shifter's gloved fist flicked through the flashing wires and crashed into his face.

* * *

_Walter looked up at his father. 'It has been the duty, nay, the privilege of the Dornez family to provide the Royal Protestant Knights with soldiers of our own blood, for centuries'. His father bowed his head and continued 'So, Arthur, I deliver Walter, our eldest, to the Hellsing family for instruction'. _

Arthur knelt down in front of the little boy and rested his hand on his head, ruffling his hair. Walter pulled back, scowling. He was nine years old! Not some child to be stroked!

Arthur laughed, 'I'm sure he'll make you proud Mr Dornez'.

* * *

Walter spat blood, he'd lost several teeth. And his nose was broken. He heaved himself upright. If he was going to die, then he would do so on his own two feet, not grovelling on broken asphalt. He steadied himself on a car, resting a single hand on the bonnet whilst he regained his balance.

He moved scarcely a moment soon enough, diving aside as the Captain smashed down onto the car, pulverising it in a shower of broken glass and twisted steel. With an elegant pivot he spun in the wreckage and launched himself into a flip, landing ahead of Walter.

Drawing the bayonet from his belt and springing forward in a single smooth motion the shifter bore down on the old Butler with lightning speed.

Walter twisted his arm upright and caught the downward swing of the bayonet, halting it inches from his throat, with his forearm pushing furiously back at the Captain, desperately trying to force a few more centimetres of space between the point and his jugular.

And so they stood, locked in combat, the old man and the lupine, one struggling to survive the other, and he struggling to drive the last vestiges of life from him. Each a soldier under orders, one to live and one to slay.

'I once asked you to join us, did I not, boy?'

Walter swore. This whole thing would be far less painful if he didn't have that psychotic Nazi Major babbling inside his head. He didn't care to imagine what else the little murdering bastard could do if he could reach his mind so easily.

'Perhaps we should-'

_'But first, on earth as vampire sent, Thy corpse shall from its tomb be rent'. _

This second voice too came not from around Walter, but also from inside his head. This, though, was a deep incisive rumble, ancient and malevolent in contrast to the Major's background mockery.

The fat little man screamed.

'STAY OUT OF THIS NO-LIFE-KING', the Major roared into the ether. 'This is our fight, no longer yours!'

_'Then ghastly haunt thy native place, And suck the blood of all thy race'. _

'SILENCE, VAMPIRE!'

_'There from thy daughter, sister, wife, At midnight drain the stream of life'_

Walter felt the relentless pressure on his forearm begin to lessen, and the blank mask of the shifter's face slowly, inexplicably, beginning to crumble, life creeping back into dead eyes.

_'Yet loathe the banquet which perforce, Must feed thy livid living corpse' _

The Captain was beginning to bleed from his eyes. Twin crimson trickles carving streams of vibrant colour into his ashen features.

_'Thy victims ere they yet expire, Shall know the demon for their sire'_

Walter collapsed, his strength all but spent as the lupine too dropped, his bloodshot eyes sporadically flashing left and right. The first true expression Walter had ever seen on the face of his old rival manifested itself with shocking clarity. Horror. Pure unadulterated, terrible, horror. And the shifter screamed, and screamed and screamed.

_'As cursing thee, thou cursing them, Thy flowers are withered on the stem'._

'They are MINE, No-Life-King, MINE and no others'. Major clenched his fists and fumed in impotent rage. 'Your sorcery is NOTHING vampire, Gunsche has been my slave for decades; you cannot break my hold so easily'.

_'I would not be so presumptuous Major'._

And Walter understood.

Gunsche was almost comatose, collapsed on the ground several feet from him. But, beyond him, in the shadows, jackals circled. Dozens of the Schutzstaffel vampires were clustered around the battle crouched on cars, on window sills and on roof tops. They watched. And waited. Alucard had crippled Gunsche, at least temporarily; most likely by eroding whatever witchcraft the Major and his Doctor had worked upon him to transform the lupine into his mindless servitor, but that was never meant to 'save' Walter.

No. That was not Alucard's way. Walter had proven himself to the vampire many times and, he thought, had earned the creature's respect. And out of that respect Alucard had given him a fighting chance, rather than a humiliating death at the hands of a foe far beyond him.

_'Die well, Angel of Death.' _

And he was gone.

The Major, still looking down from the Hindenburg, grinned; he had other plans for this particular Angel.

Far below, Walter rose to fight his last battle. A rapidly shrinking island of light amongst a sea of shadow, he released his wires once more. But even though he was bloodied and broken, swaying on his feet, the vaunted and fearless Schutzstaffel held back, unsure, like the Trojans around the wounded Achilles, they circled wary of the life still within him.

Miles away, perched on the bow of his ship the No-Life-King whispered to himself, barely audible above the groaning of his tortured conveyance.

_'Sing, O Muse, the wrath of Achilles'._

And bowed his head.


End file.
